This is a guest post by Donald Oh, a pastor at GoodTree church in Calgary
What a great Sunday Service of worship we had at GoodTree just a couple of weeks ago. Pastor Ohm and Tobi came to visit our church and share about what God is doing through African Leadership in South Africa. Pastor Ohm challenged us to understand that God’s Kingdom has already begun. God’s Kingdom is all around us because it began within our own life. God’s Kingdom has been planted into our souls and wants to break out from our hearts as an overflow to this world. God’s Kingdom wants to breakthrough! And that word “breakthrough” is the vision of our church this year: To challenge everyone to make themselves available to be used by God. We don’t need to be super “talented” or “gifted” or “smart” to be useful, but rather we need a heart that aches to experience God authentically by being an active part of His Kingdom. If we make ourselves available, God can, and will, do the impossible. I know many of us repeatedly say we “seek” God’s will for our life or we are waiting for “His call”, but let me challenge you by saying that we sit and wait on God way too much. When we wait for his call our posture is passive and yet we claim to be seeking His will. To “seek” is an action, a movement forward and that is what God desires. If we sit and wait for a “call” we may never get up and go. My challenge is to ask the Holy Spirit for courage to take a step of faith and make yourself available, rather than asking and waiting for direction.
God’s Kingdom and His will are always moving forward whether we are a part of it or not. Like a river God’s purpose never stops moving, does not wait for us to jump in, and constantly flows. We can choose to stand by the riverside and wait to see if we should jump in, or we can take the courage of the Holy Spirit and jump into God’s Kingdom River and see where God takes us. God wants you to be a part of His will and I guarantee you will experience God in such an amazing way your life will not be the same. Actually, let me change that, your life CAN’T be the same when you allow God to use you. Make yourself available, even if you aren’t sure, because the worst that could happen is that God will use you.
There is a worship song titled Came to My Rescue which has the line “I want to be where you are”. For the longest time I thought the lyrics meant where God was in heaven, but I now realize that this is not what the song is talking about. God is already here. I mean we all know that God is with us but when we cry out “I want to be where you are” we are often thinking of our time after here on earth. This type of mentality will have us waiting for the day we are in heaven and that only then we can truly bless and praise Him. In the meantime however, we end up sitting around and become passive not engaging in what God is doing in our midst. As Kingdom people we need to realize that God is already here with us, right NOW. He is moving amongst us and is waiting for you and me to take action. He attends to us in ways we don’t even know so when we desire to be where He is, we don’t need to look any further than our own life. God is in South Africa working through African Leadership, God is in Cambodia working through Samaritan’s Purse, God is in Toronto working with the poor, God is in our church working with those who are hurt. If our prayer and desire is really “I want to be where you are” than we need to go to the places where God is working as He requires us to be a part of His Kingdom experience.
For The Kingdom